


they hung us from shooting stars

by nitro26



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitro26/pseuds/nitro26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But there are chinks in his armor, holes in his story full of people and faces and things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they hung us from shooting stars

**Author's Note:**

> not mine, not real, entertainment purposes only, etc.  
> title from joseph arthur’s _when i was running out of time_  
>  spoilers for 4.12; written for glossy16 ♥  
> also on [lj](http://nitro26.livejournal.com/61514.html)

(You’ve always been everything that’s good in the world, Pete, and I got a feeling the world ain’t seen nothing yet.)  
  
He is good at this game.  
  
Smooth and refined, bright fake smiles and easy laughter, and oh, don’t forget to vote Petrelli. It’s all about the right moves; nerve, cleverness, keen calculation; knight to A4, castle to B6. His words are cut sharp and razor-edged like weapons in an arsenal. Carefully crafted deceptions roll off his tongue, shrouding truths with lies until checkmate,  _checkmate._  
  
But there are chinks. Chinks in his armor, holes in his story full of people and faces and things.   
  
There is flying, weightlessness and hovering feet that are secret and hidden because Nathan and denial get along just fine. There are kisses and laughter and sunshine-melted ice cream on sticky, humid Texas afternoons when they were free and blissfully naive, hearts light like the midsummer breeze. There is a young girl with golden curls like a princess and a stubborn set to her jaw.   
  
There is a boy with dark hair and bright eyes who thinks he will save the world someday.  
  
When things were simple and uncomplicated and the universe was vast and wide open and it almost felt like they could do anything, anything at all. The sky would be painted in pastel colors of coral and violet and Peter would say,  _doesn’t it make you wanna fly?_ Nathan would roll his eyes and give him the  _grow up, Pete, enough of this stuff, it’s time to get serious now_  speech.  _Would you like a side order of hash browns to go with that?_ Peter had asked.  _Yeah, and you can cut that stupid hair as well,_ but he would match Peter’s grin with one of his own and reach out to ruffle it fondly anyway to somehow cover up that inexplicable happy-sad, quiet edge of bruise that would ache of something like packing up and leaving and goodbye; that unsettling sense that everything was changing, slipping through their fingers, time unraveling and moments spinning away faster than they could control.   
  
Things like Peter looking at his campaign posters and complaining that Nathan never smiles at him like that and how come he’s nicer to his potential voters than he is to his own _brother?_    
  
Things like the absurdity of conversations about bad cell phone reception up in the air because call coverage simply doesn’t extend that far or high.   
  
Things like Peter spending hours making up stupid jokes because he just has far too much time on his hands like  _hey, Nathan,_  Nathan, _listen to this one: so, a flying man and an empath walk into a bar_  and grave accusations that he does not care about the environment because he refuses to fly to work instead of drive every day.  
  
It’s moments like these against the forceful pull and draw of a Machiavellian job and a sense of duty varnished in hollow glamour and lies. Like red wine and dark lipstick like blood, heads turning,  _pretty girl, are you traveling alone?_ Later on, the glimmer and shine has been replaced by her hot wet tears into the sheets and the empty spaces between their bodies that are thick and heavy with shame and guilt. And there are the tapes that he discovers in the morning because he’s Nathan Petrelli and all eyes are on him, watching his every move, examining, carefully scrutinizing to find even the tiniest opening for mistakes.   
  
But Nathan was unknowingly sending up a signal flare before any of this had even begun, sparks and flames spelling out something like  _I don’t know who I am without you._  
  
When he is a pawn in a master plan, every footfall, every tread leading to one endpoint. The way Mom slides his jacket on over his shoulders like chain mail, a soldier leaving for war ( _can you be the one we need?_ ). There is fractured glass spread across the floor of his office like the map of a battle plan that runs beneath the city surface, under pavements, roads, .07%.  _The future is not written in stone,_  says his beautiful Claire who is brave and unafraid. She hands him his sword. When Peter is a time-bomb ticking and they shoot up like fireworks, kaleidoscope of fire, light, and color bursting into the sky. Victory has always charged a heavy price.  _You go, I go._  
  
When the world is upside down and the sky is caving in on them. When it’s dark and cold and the rain is crashing against the earth, black asphalt gleaming sleek and shiny like it’s bathed in kerosene, about to be set aflame.  _Let’s run away,_  he says and Peter lets out a small huff of laughter, shakes his head.  _We’ll go anywhere you want, Pete, anywhere,_  voice soft and tired and rough, fits his hands into the curvatures of Peter’s face, sliding right into place.  _Nathan,_  he sighs,  _have you been drinking again?_  because Nathan's sharp and calculated and there's no logical explanation for any of this at all.   
  
But there never has been, not for these patterns; rhythms and rhymes impressed into flesh and bone; innate and intrinsic, like heartbeats, like breath. Soaking wet, hours past midnight, standing in his brother’s doorway and he will always find himself here, right here. But he doesn’t know how to say that, so he pulls him close instead, little brother warm, heavy, sleepy against him and somehow the extra weight tips the world right back into balance again.  
  
He can change form, modify structure, like Peter, he thinks sometimes. Like Peter, but not. Like when Mom and Dad said,  _you’re going to make it big someday,_ blueprints of success laid out in tricky tangles and twines, smoke and mirrors, and Nathan was caught.   
  
When the night is dark under the never-ending stretch of black sky and there are only two cars on the road and he is not in control, not this time. Heidi screams, chilling him to the bone and he sees it all from above, a spectator in the company of the stars. Sitting in a claustrophobic waiting room, he makes a vow, a promise, because Linderman has too much blood on his hands. But there is a portrait, a White House, a flag,  _a life of meaning,_  says Linderman and Nathan lowers the gun.  
  
When it’s between  _one of us or one of them?_ and gifts seem too much like poison and curses. There are indistinguishable figures clad in bright orange being pushed onto a plane and  _it’s for the greater good_  is a deceptive, steady mantra.  
  
It scares him sometimes, the way everything is dust and ashes, and it’s his fault,  _his,_  and all that matters is that when he says,  _I need you to tell me that you’re with me, Pete,_ Peter replies, _I am, Nathan, I am._  How when everything is noise and static and confusion, the only thing that matters is that one day he’s going to take Peter and fly away from here.  
  
And now, new skin will not knit together over old inflictions. Bolts and nails cannot fix a mess he chose because when Nathan falls, he falls too hard, too fast; meteorites and shooting starts with too many ground zeroes left in the wake.  
  
There’s Claire; the way he wears his mask, that fake politician facade, sealing up every hole. Hovering outside her window she is shivering and he wants to tell her that he’s got her, that he’ll keep her safe. But it is not his place, he is not her knight in shining armor. So he says nothing instead, like the same blood is not running through her veins, like they do not even know each other at all because in a few days she will drift away, into someone else’s life, someone else’s arms.  _I love you, Dad,_  she says to another stranger, another face. She has never belonged to him. Apologies and useless words hang heavy and suffocating in the air like sticky Mexican nights, but they don’t mean a single thing because there’s nothing he can do now that isn’t sixteen years late. He was supposed to be her Superman.  
  
There’s those two crazy boys with messy hair and mischievous grins that he wishes he could look at and think,  _I did right by you,_  but he can’t because they deserved a father, not a man falling apart.  
  
There’s Peter and maybe he hasn’t lost him yet because Peter will always forgive him in the end and Nathan will always find his way back home. And it’s strange the way they fit together. Or more like the way they don’t really because their edges are sharp and jagged and they will keep cutting each other, over and over and over, rough tear of scrapes and bruises brought to the surface, a cycle reborn completely, endlessly, until ghosts of apologies and things they mean too much to say are enough for them to wear each other smooth.  
  
And tonight the city lights burn, tiny explosions staggering across the sky. They’ve been here before,  _seems like a million years ago,_ says Peter. _A lifetime,_  because one day Peter jumped off a building and Nathan caught him and there’s that swift guillotine of sadness, of a quiet, heavy ache that somewhere,  _somewhere_  along the line both of them have  _changed._    
  
There should’ve been some sort of build-up; clues, premonitions, tell-tale signs. Or maybe there was and he was never paying attention, the same way he was never in control, not then, not now. Falling too hard and fast, words like weapons, missteps less like mistakes and more like disasters, so maybe he was always set to self-destruct from the start, back when everything was a domino game waiting to play out, when everything was leading up to something amazing, something extraordinary.  
  
Peter’s hands are solid, heavy over the hole of a sempiternal wound, Nathan’s insides slipping out and he’s the only thing that’s holding him together, but wasn’t that always Peter. Paramedic uniform and overflowing heart on his sleeve, that somehow marks every single one of his greatest downfalls but he’s telling Nathan to pull himself up,  _please please please, I can’t do this without you_  so maybe, just maybe he’s done something right after all.  
  
When the end comes, there are no flashing lights or neon signs, no magnificence or grand explosives to shake the sky; just Nathan’s aching arms, three simple words, and in that one moment when the ground has finally given way, between Peter and the world feels like the same place he’s always been.


End file.
